Mashable just announced this years Open Web Awards (http://mashable.com/openwebawards/home/). This is the second annual Open Web Award contest following a successful first year. Last year I saw several people discussing the awards and several friends / colleagues nominated from large scale social networks to niche blogs.

There are many web awards, why is this one different?
People nominate sites and anyone who signs up can vote.
This is much more like a peoples choice award.

Anyone can nominate any site that fits into one of 26 categories. Because this is Mashable the entrants and categories focus on social websites/applications/widgets.

Here are the categories

1. Mainstream and Large Scale Social Networks
2. Embeddable Widgets
3. Blog Plugins
4. Social News
5. Social Networking Applications
6. Social Bookmarking
7. Search And Social Search
8. Sports and Fitness
9. Photo Sharing
10. Video Sharing
11. Start Pages
12. Places and Events
13. Travel
14. Music
15. Social Shopping
16. Fashion
17. Celebrity and Gossip
18. Mobile Applications
19. Dating and Romance
20. Wiki
21. Politics
22. How-To
23. Environmental
24. Non-Profit Causes
25. Online Games
26. Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

Nominations open Nov 5th. Vote early and often.